Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1887-04-30

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the soul. That which ought to have been a
temple of the Holy Ghost viii become q
SCARED and blasted ruin-every light quenched
and every altar in the dust That petty thief,
who slips into your store and takes q yard Of
cloth from your counter, will become the
highwayman of the forest, or the burglar at
midnight, picking the lock of your money safe
and blowing up the store to hide the yillainy.
A great army, with staggering step, and
bloodshot eye, and drunken hoot they,
are coming ongathering recruits from
every grog shop and den of intamy in the
land, to take the ballot-box and hurran at the
elections. The hard-knuckled fist OF rutiians
ism will have more power than the gentle
hand of intelligence and so3ficty. Men
bloated, and with the signature of sin
burned in from the top of the forehead
to the bottom of the chin, will look hon
est men out OF countenance, Moral corpSes,
which ought to be buried hundred feet deep
to keep them from poisoning the air, will rot
in the face of the sun at monday. Industry
in her plain frocl1 will be unappreciated,
while thousands Of men will wander i'll idle
ness, with their hands on their hips, saying:
"The world owes us a living. o, what ire
mendous power there is in iniquity when I'M
educated, and unrestrained, and unblanched
it goes ON concentrating and deepening and
widening, and gathering momentum until it
swings ahead with q very triumph of deSola-
ton, drowning like surges, scorching like
flames, crushing like rocks! What are you
going to do with this abandoned population
of the streets! viii you gather them in your
Churchesl Its not the will OF your Heavenly
Father that one of these little ones
should perish. Ii you have ten respectable
children in your class, gather in ten that are
not respectable II in your Bible-class there
be twenty young men who have come from
Christian homes and elegant surroundings,
let those twenty young men go out and
gather in twenty more of the young men of
the city who are lost to God and lost to so
ciety This outside population, unless ed
Gated and restrained, will work ter
ror in ages that are to come.
Years ago, at New Orleans, when the cholera
was raging fearfully, asteamboatput ont just
before nightfaJl, crowded with passengers
who were trying to escape from the
pestilence After the boat had been out
little while the engineer fell with the cholera.
The captain, in consideration, went
down among the passengers and asked:
'Is there any one here who knows
anything about engineeringm a Swarthy
man replied: Il am an engineer" "Well,"
said the Captain, 81 would be very
glad if you would take charge of this boat"
The man went TO the engine. Tine steamer
moved more rapidly, until after awhile, the
Captain and some passenger were alarmed,
and they went TO see what was the mat
ter, and they found that this was maniac
engineer, and that he was peeping
down the safety-valve; and, as they
came to him. he said: 81 am commissioned of
Satan to drive this steamer to hell.n and he
nourished his pistol, and would not come
down. But after awhile. through some
stratagem, he was brought from his position,
and the lives of the passengers were saved.
O, my friends! that steamer had no such
peril as our institutions are threat
ened with, if the ignorant and
unrestraine1 children of this land shall
come mp in their ignorance and their crime
TO engineer our civil and religious institu-
tions, and drive them on the rocks Educate
this abandoned population, or they will over
throw the institutions Of this land. Gather
them into your Sabbath-schools. | con-
graduate you that many have been
gathered 60 FORTH teachers, in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
on the coming sabbath may there DO
found gathered scores and hundreds of these
wanderers, and instead of eighteen hundred
in the Sabbath-school, we shall see three
thousand or four thousand. and the grace of
God will come down upon them, and the Holy
Spirit will bring them all into the truth.
Another characteristic of a live church is
one with appropriate architecture. In the
far West and amid destitute population, n
! log church is very appropriate-the people
4 living in log houses. But in communities
where people live in comfortable abodes, a
church uncommodious or lacking in beauty is
n moral nuisance. Because Christ was born in
n manger is no reason why we should worship
Him in n barn. Let the churches of Jesus
Christ be not only comfortable, but ornate.
Years ago we resolved 10 have a comfortable
church. We resolved that il should be amphi-
theatrical in shape The prominent archi-
tects of the country, after figuring on the
matter n good while, said that such church
would not be ohurchly and they would have
moi IN Il NTH f1ra ra.icn
But after awhile we found an architect will
ing TO risk his reputation. He put up for us
the first tabernacle, in amphitheatrical style.
We liked it. All who came liked it, This
building followed in the same style. We be-
lieve it is appropriate and adapted. An an
| gular church will have an angular theology.
The Church of Jesus Christ ought to be great
family. circle, the pulpit only the fire place,
around which they are gathered in sweet and
domestic communion. But when our first
tabernacle went up, O the caricature and the
soothing They said: Its hippoirome !
| It's a holy cirdus It's Talmage's theatre y
| But the Lord came down with power upon
that old building, and made it a gate of
heaven to a great many. And this building
/ followed. That we were right in persisting
/ in the style of architecture is proved
| by the fact that now there gre sixty or
seventy churches in the United States
| in the same style. Indeed our tabernacle has
revolutionized Church architecture in this
country. A live Church must have a COM
modious, a comfortable, an adapted building
How amiable are Thy Tahernacles, o Lord
of Hostsi would rather be a door-keeper in
the house of my God than to dwell in the tents
| of wicl1ednessn
| Again, the characteristic Of live church
must be that it is a soul-saving church. It
must be the old Gospel of Christ ''0h," say
some people, the Gospel Of Christ allows but
small swing for a mans faculties, and some